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Complete hand fossil shows early tool-maker: Study

Sapa-AFP | 08 September, 2011 16:22

The cranium of Malapa hominid 1 (MH1) from South Africa, named "Karabo". The combined fossil remains of this juvenile male is designated as the holotype for Australopithecus sediba.Image by: Prof. Lee R. Berger

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She swung in the trees like a chimp but had long dexterous fingers for tool-making and hybrid feet for walking upright, a study out Thursday on the ancient hominid Australopithecus sediba suggested.

Until now, the first tool-maker was widely believed to be Homo
habilis, based on a set of 21 fossilised hand bones found in Tanzania that date
back 1.75-million years and a collection of artefacts.

But a close examination of two partial fossilized skeletons of
Au. sediba discovered in South Africa
in 2008 suggests these creatures who roamed the Earth 1.9-million years ago
were crafting tools even earlier, and could be the first direct ancestor of the
Homo species.

Based on the most complete hand specimen ever found, Au. sediba
had an extra-long thumb and powerful fingers, which it could have used to make
tools despite still having a small ape-like brain, suggested the findings in
the journal Science.

The rare discovery of hand bones belonged to an adult female who
may have been about 20 or 30 when she died. Her remains were found near a young
boy, whose fossilised bones were also included in the study.

"The sediba hand reveals a surprising mix of features that
we wouldn't have predicted could exist in the same hand," said co-author
Tracy Kivell from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,
Germany.

"It has this long thumb, but surprisingly this thumb is
even longer than we see in modern humans," she said.

"The wrist was better able to deal with larger loads that
it might experience during tool use for example," and it had long narrow
fingers "capable of powerful grasping," she added.

"So this mix of morphology suggests to us that sediba
likely still used its hands for climbing in trees... but it was likely also
capable of making the precision grips that we believe are necessary for making
stone tools."

Other body parts featured in the study were sediba's small but
advanced brain, its pelvis reflecting an upright posture, and a unique foot and
ankle that "combines features of both apes and humans in one anatomical
package," said project leader Lee Berger.

Berger, an American who is a professor at South
Africa's University of the Witwatersrand,
and his nine-year-old son discovered the fossil site of Malapa, north of Johannesburg,
in 2008.

The site has since yielded more than 220 bones from at least
five individuals; some babies, juveniles and adults.

The female's foot and ankle bones, some of the most complete
specimens ever found, surprised paleoanthropologists because of their odd mix
of a human-like foot arch and Achilles tendon, but a heel and shin like that of
an ape.

"If the bones had not been found stuck together, the team
may have described them as belonging to different species," said co-author
Bernard Zipfel from the University of the Witwatersrand.

The analysis by a team of 80 international scientists offers new
clues into how the transition from ape to human may have occurred, but also
raises plenty of questions about the evolution of our species.

Scientists aren't sure if the Homo genus, which includes
contemporary humans, evolved directly from the Au. sediba, or if Au. sediba was
a so-called "dead-end" species and the Homo genus evolved separately.

One of the main problems facing paeloanthropologists is that
little is known about the skeletal characteristics of the Homo habilis, so even
though sediba is well-defined there is an absence of evidence for comparison.

However, the findings suggest sediba is "squarely in the
potential for the ancestor leading to the emergence of the genus Homo,"
said Berger.